Sky Sounds with Neoangin, aka Jim Avignon

“Forever Coming of Age,” the title of the new record, is, if you will, a concept album that explores the deep longing for eternal youth. “Coming of age” describes a person’s development from childhood to adulthood (according to Wikipedia) and is a genre frequently explored in films and novels. Avignon, too, is occasionally overcome by the feeling that he has never truly left his teenage years behind, yet at the same time can already see the end in the distance. He sets this dilemma—as a way of life—to music in his typically personal songs, which these days often take a political turn. Especially with “Still in Love with a World That Destroys Itself,” he captures the prevailing mood of the times with unsettling accuracy. Jim remains a “hopeless optimist,” even as the world goes down the drain.

Electro-pop with a dash of chaos

Neoangin experimented early on with distilling electronic sounds and singer-songwriting into a sound all his own, and on “forever coming of age” he’s once again at the top of his game. His trademark is an ambivalence between euphoria and melancholy—a rarity in the music world—that gives the Neoangin sound that certain something: A sound that immediately takes you on a journey. What’s more, the “one-man home electronics band” has since become a two-man combo. Joining him is drummer Martin Petersdorf, who adds the necessary dash of chaos to Neoangin’s unmistakable DIY electro-pop and occasionally lets the songs drift into dub-inspired territory.

You get the best impression, however, when you experience Neoangin on stage: their live shows are excellent entertainment—sound, stage sets, masks, and absurd ideas. In two minutes, they take you from party to crisis to euphoria to madness to grief to “Ciao”—excellent entertainment beyond all known genres.